Never believe the customer service guy who has bad news
Dec 27, 2009 How To Piss Me Off
I just got off of the phone with Time Warner Cable. I wanted to cancel our premium channels. For as long as I can remember we’ve been paying about $33 a month for four sets of premium channels (HBO, Cinemax, etc.). We don’t use them anywhere near enough for that to be worth it, but we like things to be easy. We like to just record Entourage and Weeds and watch them soon after they’ve aired. The included on demand channels were handy – that is, when they happened to have something we wanted to watch. Again, convenient when we used it, but not worth $33 a month.
So, I did an online chat with Time Warner to make sure that I was reading our bill right: that if we canceled those channels we would save more than $30 a month. I was afraid that it was some kind of package, but no, the chat confirmed that I was reading the bill right.
So, after consulting with The Ass (who never needs to be convinced to save money) I called Time Warner to cancel. Easy enough, right?
But wait: this Time Warner guy on the phone was telling me that I would only save $5 a month! What?
Luckily for me, I had clicked the box that said “Send me a transcript of my chat session.” When I told phone guy what chat guy had said, he put me on hold and then came back and apologized. I was correct, he said. I canceled the channels.
See, the thing is, when I went through the automated list of choices at the beginning of the call to route me to the right department, I had to press the choice for canceling service. So before I even spoke with someone that person knew that I wanted to pay Time Warner less money each month, and it’s his job to stop that from happening. And if I hadn’t just had that online chat, I might not have pressed him. I might have just accepted what he said and kept the channels.
So the lessons? Oh, there are many.
- Take a good look at your bills and ask yourself if you’re paying for something you don’t need. When we signed up with Time Warner about seven years ago, we thought we needed those channels. Needs change, finances change, but we didn’t re-evaluate until now. If we had used the channels for a few months and then asked ourselves if we really needed them, we would have saved over $2,500 by now.
- Get it in writing. Whenever you’re able to tell someone “I have it in writing” you’ve got a much better shot at getting what you want.
- Don’t accept what the first person tells you if it isn’t what you want to hear. From now on, if something like that happens again, I’ll say ‘Thank you,” hang up, and call back again, hoping for a different person. Customer service reps are human, and whether they’re being purposely deceptive or don’t know what they’re talking about, you should confirm that what they’re saying is correct. But don’t ask that first person to connect you with someone else: that will give them a chance to circle their wagons.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
These boobs were made for talkin’
Nov 30, 2009 How To Piss Me Off
Have you seen this commercial for Reebok Women’s EasyTone Shoes
For the record, while I don’t think the second commercial is great, I think it targets its audience a little better: women who wish people were staring at their butts instead of listening to what they’re saying.
Ugh. Or maybe I’m just pissed at both commercials since my boobs and butt will never look like those!
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: commercial, Reebok EasyTone Shoes
Hey Burger King, you’re getting timed for a reason!
Aug 14, 2009 How To Piss Me Off
Last night on the way home from camp the kids and I went through the Burger King Drive-Through. When we were next in line for the window I noticed that the guy in front of me had his reverse lights on, so I stayed back about 10 feet – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people back up for something, forget they’re in reverse, then hit the gas. When it was my turn at the window, the BK cashier asked me to pull forward and then back up. I was so surprised and busy processing what she was saying and trying not to back up into the window with my mirror and asking for salt and checking the orders that I didn’t get a chance to ask her why. But I guessed that she had asked the guy in front of me to do the same thing. As I was leaving I looked in the review mirror I saw that the guy behind me was doing the same thing as well. WTF?
It bothered me all night that I couldn’t figure out what the purpose was. I went back in my mind to my McDonald’s and Arby’s days, but at both places I made the food, I didn’t work the Drive-Through. Then, finally, it hit me: I’ve seen big timers in some restaurants, timing how long each Drive-Through order was taking. There must be a sensor somewhere that stops the clock and starts timing the next order! Was she asking each car to stop the clock on their order so that the restaurant’s stats would look good?
I went back this morning, in the interest of investigation – not because I was dying for a Croissan’wich. Once again, when I got to the window, I was asked to pull forward and back up. I said “Why? Are you trying to stop the timer?” She said yes. I said something to the effect of “But that’s cheating. How will the process get any faster if they think you’re already really fast?” I know enough about fast food restaurants to know that they really study this stuff. There are systems that figure out when you should drop fries based on how many cars are in the Drive-Through lines. There are McDonald’s that have outsourced their Drive-Through order-taking jobs to call centers. Corporate sure as hell wants to know for how long people are sitting in the Drive-Through.
The BK worker admitted that yes, it was cheating, but that the restaurant is given time goals each week and they’re not meeting them. So I said something like, “But how will the times get faster if you don’t acknowledge that there’s a problem?” She told me I didn’t have to pull forward if I didn’t want to. I’m not really sure it was necessary for her to tell me that. Was the alternative for her to hold my food hostage until I pulled forward?
When I go through a Drive-Through, I want the process to be fast. And more often than not here in Brooklyn, the process is anything but. So as a customer, it is absolutely not in my best interest to help Burger King trick corporate into thinking that they’re already speedy. I’m insulted that they’d ask.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: Burger King
